


The Worst We Fear Lets Fall Its Weight

by birdsoup



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: 3x17, F/M, Hurt Jughead Jones, Hurt/Comfort, Mentioned Gladys Jones, Missing Scene, she's not explicitly mentioned but she's there lurking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 01:09:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18272729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdsoup/pseuds/birdsoup
Summary: A quiet moment together and a little first aid. They have each other.





	The Worst We Fear Lets Fall Its Weight

Betty spreads her deluxe first aid kit open on the bath mat beside the tub to hunt for her ace bandages.

"Are you sure you don't want me to take you to the Greendale clinic? We don't have to tell your dad." Except his dad isn't the one prowling the den between the stairs and the front door.

Cold bath water sloshes as he hauls himself up from his slump to show her how he feels about that. The intensity of his glare is a little dulled and partially hidden by the frozen peas he's holding to his temple, but the grumpiness of it still warms her heart like an ember.

Tonight he is pale limbs folded up to fit in her little tub and dark bruises all down his right side from head to knee.  
"As long as you're sure it isn't broken," she says, tenderly rubbing the arm in question where it's propped on the edge. "I'll do my best to wrap it up but I'm not really qualified here."

"Hey," he murmurs, "You were an excellent nurse last spring." With only a flicker of a flinch he turns his swollen wrist over and takes her hand. His grip isn't as strong as usual and it's cold from the water. She squeezes back.

He's nowhere near as bad as last spring after the Ghoulies, but seeing the shadows of bruises in his skin and hurt in his eyes still makes something vital ache from her throat to her chest.

Nothing can happen to Jughead.

Somewhere in this town there's a room where the dead come back but it has nothing on this cramped cold bathroom. There is no room in the world that can show him to her as real and solid as he is now, as she needs him to be.

His hip and shoulder took the worst of it, already blooming deep purplish red so vivid it looks like paint under the refracting bath water. But it's his head she's most worried about. Gently she pulls the makeshift ice pack away from his face. He rests it on a bony knee instead and blinks sleepily at her when she presses damp hair back and leans in to check his forehead.

Minimal swelling, pupils normal, breath hot on her lips, the delicate skin of his neck is smooth as ever against her fingers. The moment breaks with a rattle of their room's thin walls - the sound of someone down the hall shoving the door of the master suite shut.

"Come on, I think you've soaked enough."

He stands, tall and shivering and unabashed, and lets her help him out of the tub. They're clumsy in the small space but her sweater is the only casualty, discarded immediately onto his pile of clothes full of dust and splinters. She should hang it up to let the sleeves dry. Later.

She wraps him in a soft towel and pushes his good shoulder until he lowers onto the toilet lid, placing his hair in reach for her to rub dry.

"What hurts now?" She's curious. He's moving okay except for evident exhaustion, but there's something he's holding carefully. Something fractured that isn't bone. She presses fingertips firmly into the tense diamond of muscle from neck to broad shoulders, down his narrow back as far as she can reach.

"I'm too angry to feel anything yet," he says tiredly. His arms wrap her hips and pull so he can pillow his head against her belly and speak into her skin.

"But I think something broke in my chest a long time ago and it's finally shaking loose."

**Author's Note:**

> babby's first fic, title from hozier's be


End file.
